Obamacare, Discrimination, Contraceptives and Rubber Gloves
The President has approved an Obamacare regulation requiring health insurance companies to cover contraceptives as part of their “preventive health services” for women
This initiative has stirred up considerable hostility among Catholics and other religious groups who believe the regulation violates the first amendment of the Constitution that stipulates
” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
My wife and I, both octogenarians, have little interest in or need for contraceptive protection, so the regulation is clearly part of the President’s program of age discrimination. Contraceptives may be of use for those young whippersnappers, but what about the preventive health needs of us more mature people?
Taking the President’s logic to its natural conclusion, it is only reasonable to demand Obamacare provide preventive health services to my wife and require our health insurance company to provide her with the rubber gloves she uses for protection of her hands when washing dishes.
And while they are at it, they can throw in the toothbrushes we use to prevent cavities. That is something that would benefit people of all ages and demonstrate the President is not guilty of age discrimination.
Note that the Bill of Right proscribes what Congress can do. It is silent on what regulations the President can promulgate.
A 2012 Conservative’s view of the Republican Party
This is the impression of a conservative once-upon-a-time Republican who was left behind when the Republican Party moved left to join the progressive Democrats.
The Republican Party hierarchy appears to be threatened by the rise of conservatives in their midst who won elections in 2010 and could challenge the party hierarchy for influence and power if these conservatives grow stronger and more numerous.
That Republican Party hierarchy has done its best to marginalize the conservative members of Congress.
That Republican Party hierarchy responded to the perceived conservative threat by turning a cold shoulder to the more conservative presidential candidates and has orchestrated carefully timed endorsements of their liberal candidate.
That Republican Party hierarchy has done nothing to change a New Hampshire voting procedure that allows progressive Democrats and Independents to vote for the Republican Party’s liberal Republican candidate. If the Republicans allow Democrats to help them pick their nominee, why not let illegal aliens help too? At the same time the Republican Party hierarchy threatens to punish Florida, which requires that only Republicans vote in the Republican primary election, for adjusting the date of their primary election. Date adjustment is apparently a much more serious transgression than non-Republicans voting for a Republican nominee.
That Republican Party hierarchy has arrogantly taken the position that conservatives, concerned about the direction the progressive Marxist incumbent White House occupant has taken the country, will have to vote for their Republican nominee no matter how liberal that nominee is. That Republican Party hierarchy behaves like it is the only game in town and the conservatives can take it or leave it. Do they not know that many conservatives are seriously considering the “leave it” option?
That Republican Party hierarchy seems oblivious to the need for an enthused electorate that will beat the bushes and provide funds to help their candidate get elected.
That Republican Party hierarchy does not seem to understand or care about the role enthusiastic Tea Party members and other conservatives played in the election of the conservative Republicans in 2010.
That Republican Party hierarchy does not seem to understand that one option for conservatives is to turn their enthusiasm and money to conservatives running for Congress and local offices and to ignore the Republican Party’s progressive presidential candidate.
That Republican Party hierarchy apparently cannot conceive of the possibility that their 2012 liberal presidential candidate who does not fire up the conservative base can suffer the same fate as their 2008 liberal presidential candidate who did not fire up the conservative base.
This conservative’s view: A conservative replacement for the progressive Republican Party cannot come too soon.
MAJOR 2012 FLORIDA LEGISLATURE ISSUES
The 2012 legislative session will begin on January 10, 2012 and end on March 9, 2012
There are two major constitutionally required activities for the session, redistricting and appropriating. Some legislative leaders have said that not much more will get done in the allotted 60 days.
1. REDISTRICTING
In 2012 the legislature is required to redraw both the U.S. congressional district boundaries and the state legislative district boundaries. The effort must be consistent with provisions of the U.S. and Florida Constitutions and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965
1.1 U.S. CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT BOUNDARIES
Florida is required to change its existing congressional district boundaries because it is adding two representatives for the 2012 election.
The U.S. Constitution states in ARTICLE I., Sect. 2. “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to the respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.”
The Census Bureau reports that in the 2010 census the total US population was 308,745,538
The Census Bureau also reports that in the 2010 the Florida population was 18,843,326
If the population were to be distributed equally to each member of the U.S. House of representatives, each of the 435 members would represent 709,760 people (308,745,538/435=709,760), and Florida would have 27 congressional districts (18,843,326/709,760=27). At the present time Florida has 25 congressional districts so the increasing state population requires the addition of two more representatives. These are to be elected in 2012.
The present congressional district boundaries are the result of the liberal application of Gerrymandering. For example, the 16th congressional district represented by Tom Rooney of Tequesta stretches from Palm Beach County on the Atlantic Ocean to Punta Gorda in Charlotte County on the Gulf of Mexico.
The recently enacted provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Florida Constitution (SECTION 16) enumerated in Section 1.2 below apply to the congressional district boundaries and make the work of the legislature more challenging.
The challenges are political, not a simple matter of mathematics. It is necessary to have districts that are compact and utilize existing political and geographical boundaries. Many state politicians see that it is their challenge is to redistrict while minimizing the impact on the electability of incumbent politicians.
The plan developed by the legislature will have to be approved by the U.S. Justice Department (a Voting Rights Act requirement) and be in place for the primary election in August.
1.2 FLORIDA STATE LEGISLATURE DISTRICT BOUNDARIES
The Florida State Constitution states in “SECTION 16. Legislative apportionment.—
(a) SENATORIAL AND REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICTS. The legislature at its regular session in the second year following each decennial census, by joint resolution, shall apportion the state in accordance with the constitution of the state and of the United States into not less than thirty nor more than forty consecutively numbered senatorial districts of either contiguous, overlapping or identical territory, and into not less than eighty nor more than one hundred twenty consecutively numbered representative districts of either contiguous, overlapping or identical territory. Should that session adjourn without adopting such joint resolution, the governor by proclamation shall reconvene the legislature within thirty days in special apportionment session which shall not exceed thirty consecutive days, during which no other business shall be transacted, and it shall be the mandatory duty of the legislature to adopt a joint resolution of apportionment.”
.
The Florida State Constitution also states in “SECTION 21. Standards for establishing legislative district boundaries.—In establishing legislative district boundaries:
(a) No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.
(b) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection 1(a) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.
(c) The order in which the standards within subsections 1(a) and (b) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
History.—Proposed by Initiative Petition filed with the Secretary of State September 28, 2007; adopted 2010.
1Note.—The subsections of section 21, as it appeared in Amendment No. 5, proposed by Initiative Petition filed with the Secretary of State September 28, 2007, and adopted in 2010, were designated (1)-(3); the editors redesignated them as (a)-(c) to conform to the format of the State Constitution.”
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires the creation of a district that performs for racial minorities where (1) a minority population is geographically compact and sufficiently numerous to be a majority in a single district; (2) the minority population is politically cohesive; (3) the majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority-preferred candidate; and (4) under all of the circumstances, the minority population has less opportunity than others to participate in the political process and elect representatives of its choice.
.
2. BUDGETING AND APPROPRIATING
Funds for operating the state must be appropriated in bills passed by the legislature and approved by the Governor.
This is normally a lengthy process involving the drafting of proposed legislation by the various representatives, the holding of hearings by legislative committees of both the House and Senate to consider the bills and recommend changes, and the passage of the bills by both houses after they have been reconciled to be identical.
3. OTHER LEGISLATION
As of January 8, 2012 approximately 700 bills were submitted in the House for consideration and 900 bills in the Senate and more are being submitted daily.
The media outlets are replete with reports by various advocates and opponents of proposed legislation endeavoring to get their issues before the public in an effort to influence which, if any, bills will get passed.
Legislative leaders have said not much more than redistricting and appropriating will get done.
Fighting Mad over Fighting Metals
A law passed on July 21, 2010 by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by Democrat President Obama outlaws the use of specified metals in the products of American manufacturers.
It seems like another effort to destroy our country and drive manufacturing overseas.
The metals involved are gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten.
With the exception of gold, which people have been fighting over since the beginning of recorded history, the other metals are not normally associated with human conflict.
Tantalum is used in the production of capacitors which are used in almost all electronic devices.
Tin is used in the manufacture of fungicides, tin cans, paint and solder.
Tungsten is used for fishing weights, golf club heads and the filaments of incandescent light bulbs. The manufacture of incandescent light bulbs (Invented in the United States by Thomas Edison) has already been driven overseas and they are now made in Mexico since their sale in the United States was outlawed beginning next year by the Energy Independence and Security Act Of 2007.
The legislation outlawing these “fighting metals” is Public law 111–203: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. “Fighting metals” is one reason the Dodd-Frank Act is on the list of laws to be repealed if conservatives ever get into power.
The term used to obfuscate the legislation is not “fighting metals” but “Conflict Minerals”
The Securities and Exchange Commission is busy writing rules to implement the law by changing the annual reporting requirements of companies. I wonder how much that effort is costing the taxpayers.
More information on the metals and the meddling of our government can be found at. Wikipedia.
If anyone can explain what these “Conflict Minerals” have to do with either “Wall Street Reform” or “Consumer Protection”, the purported purposes of the act, we would be interested in hearing from you.
You and I are paying to bail out Greece.
Greece’s profligate spending on social programs has taken it to the point where its Debt/GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio exceeds 150%.
The Greek deficit is growing out of control and its increasing inability to repay its debt threatens the fiscal stability of the Eurozone to which it belongs.
On October 26, 2011 the European council announced a plan to solve the Greek debt crisis:
The plan involves the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributing 100 Billion euros (€).
A euro equals 1.421US dollars so the IMF could end up paying as much as $142.1 billion,
The United States pays 17.7 percent of the IMF budget so the U.S. could end up contributing as much as $25.2 billion.
The Congressional budget office estimates the 2011 U.S. revenues will be $2,228 billion. Thus the U.S. portion of the IMF contribution for the short-term fix for the Greek debt could be 1.1 percent of U.S. revenues.
So as much as $11 of every $1,000 you and I paid in taxes this year will go to bail out Greece. For many of us that is more than the cost of a ticket to Greece.
We will not be going buy our money will.
If Greece and the other European countries want to give out goodies and live irresponsibly above their means, more power to them. But why do I have to pay for their excesses? Why don’t they take responsibility for their actions?
Our country is also going bankrupt. We cannot afford Obamacare and regulations and other goodies of Obama’s socialism (“Obamalism”). The fed is printing money, we are suffering inflation from Obamalism and we can ill afford to bail out Europe.
I have not seen anyone in Europe offering to pay for our Obamalism.
Our legislators need to kill the system that allows Europe to increase our debt load.
Net Neutrality being neutered?
Net (Internet) Neutrality can be defined as the condition for which there are no restrictions by Internet service providers or governments on consumers’ access to networks that participate in the internet.
Most citizens support net neutrality in keeping with their desire for unfettered access to the Internet. Most organizations involved in providing services through the Internet also support Net Neutrality.
A summary of the history of Net Neutrality can be found in a memo prepared for Net Neutrality Congressional hearings.
In the United States communications are regulated by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) . The FCC has five members. The Chairman is appointed by the President. The other four members are usually split between the two political parties.
The FCC is chaired now by Julius Genachowski a longtime Obama friend and a top 2008 campaign fundraiser,
In 2005 the FCC declared “The Commission has a duty to preserve and promote the vibrant and open character of the Internet as the telecommunications marketplace enters the broadband age. To foster creation, adoption and use of Internet broadband content, applications, services and attachments, and to ensure consumers benefit from the innovation that comes from competition; the Commission will incorporate the above principles into its ongoing policymaking activities”
The FCC left the Internet alone until December 21, 2010 when it issued FCC Net Neutrality order FCC 10-201. The order is a non-trivial regulation occupying 194 pages. The order adopts rules “embodying four core principles: transparency, no blocking, no unreasonable discrimination, and reasonable network management.”
A reading of the order gives one the impression it is an attempt to take over another segment of our daily lives much as Obamacare takes over our health care.
The FCC order states: “These rules are generally consistent with, and should not require significant changes to, broadband providers’ current practices”.
If that is true, why are regulations necessary?
The order includes, at the end, a “DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MEREDITH ATTWELL BAKER” The dissent is a statement from a minority (Republican) Commissioner about the action of the majority (Democratic) Commissioners and includes the following statements:
”the Internet is open today. The evidentiary record in our proceeding has reaffirmed that government action is not necessary to preserve it. Yet the majority acts, and acts decisively, to adopt Net Neutrality rules, imposing the heavy hand of government into how broadband networks will be managed and operated. The data most certainly does not drive us to this result. In the final analysis, the Commission intervenes to regulate the Internet because it wants to, not because it needs to.”
“The majority is unable to identify a single ongoing practice of a single broadband provider that it finds problematic upon which to base this action.”
“the majority regulates an entire sector of the Internet without any legitimate legal authority to do so.”
” The majority does all of this without any apparent appreciation of the regulatory costs and distortive effect of government micromanagement of broadband networks.”
“I keep returning to what should be a threshold question: why do we intervene in the one sector of the economy that is working so well to create high-paying jobs, untold consumer choice, and entrepreneurial opportunity?”
“I have seven principal objections to this decision. First, the factual record does not support government intervention. Second, the majority’s claim that consumers will benefit from this government overreach is unsupported and deeply flawed. Third, the majority’s focus on preserving network operators’ current conditions will distort tomorrow’s Internet. Fourth, the majority puts the Commission in the unworkable role of Internet referee. Fifth, the majority fails to marshal a sustainable legal foundation. Sixth, the majority’s decision to act a legislator, not regulator, is a mistake that may undermine our agency’s mission. And, lastly, opportunity cost. By that I mean, we have squandered months on this effort, diverting resources and political capital away from real problems that lie within our core competencies, like universal service and spectrum reform.”
The dissenting statement then provides extensive details to back up the seven objections enumerated above.
The FCC must understand the public is not happy with its regulatory efforts because it has created a web site to sell its regulations to the public.
Because of the controversy stirred up by this net neutrality order and the economic stakes involved, it is likely not the last word.
Big Brother
I do not have a brother to perform some of the usual family functions, so Big Brother has kindly stepped into fill the void.
I will (hopefully) have a birthday later this month and today received the following email message:
“Subject: Important Message from Medicare
Dear EDWARD A WOLFF
Happy Birthday from Medicare! We wish you well in the upcoming year. Our records show you are currently up-to-date on your preventive services. Congratulations on using Medicare to help you stay healthy. We will send you emails in the future as you become eligible for other Medicare preventive services that will be listed in the calendar below to assist you with planning and scheduling your appointments.”
It may not be polite to express disdain over an honest expression of concern for my continued well-being, but of all the people from whom I was expecting to receive birthday wishes, I must confess Medicare was not one of them. I never ascribed anthropomorphic qualities to Medicare, yet here they were graciously updating me on the status of my health as if they knew more about me than I do. As part of the Big Brother establishment, maybe they do.
Does this portend the future under Obamacare? Is this a part of the “You have to pass the bill to know what is in it” prescription?
We do not want to sound ungrateful, but how many civil servants have we hired to program the government computers to analyze citizen medical records and spit out emails to tell them when it is time to see the doctor and what they need to ask the doctor about?
We were having trouble understanding how the country could have racked up the tremendous debt it carries, but if this is an example of what the country is hiring people to do it is starting to add up.
The Postal Service is going bankrupt because, they say, they are being supplanted by email. So here is another branch of government saving money by using emails and helping the put the Postal Service under the bus.
It is time to go back and reread Alice in Wonderland and 1984.
Sarbanes-Oxley for Government (a.k.a. Government Accountability)
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Corporate Responsibility Act, requires for all companies filing a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that the principal executive and financial officers certify in each report: (1) The signing officer has reviewed the report; (2) The report does not contain any untrue statement of fact or omit to state a material fact; and (3) The financial information in the report, fairly present the financial condition and results of operations.
There have been several controversial government activities and
dubious government contracts recently for which no government official has been willing to accept responsibility and the amorphous nature of the federal government and its operations makes it difficult to determine who authorized the questionable activities.
We need a federal government where officials responsible for controversial operations and dubious contracts can be held accountable.
We need a federal government equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requiring the authorizing federal official for all operations and all purchases involving an expenditure of $100,000 or more to sign an authorizing document stating: (1) The reason the expenditure is necessary; (2) The results of a cost/benefits study showing the benefits of the expenditure; (3) The source of the funds in the budget; and (4) The controls in place to assure the funds are properly spent.
And the perjury laws should apply to the federal officials’ statements
We can call it the Federal Government Reform and Government Responsibility Act.
What is good for private industry should be good for the federal government.
Testimony Tampering?
Why does a General Risks His Career Reporting Testimony Tampering?
The media is all concerned about the dustup involving Air Force 4-star General William Shelton, who heads the Air Force Space Command, testifying the White House pressured him to change his testimony in a classified briefing to a U.S. House oversight committee.
The media is all concerned about the White House pressure, which is serious enough, but nothing is said about the far more serious problem, the one the general was willing to risk his career to preclude.
It involves a company, LightSquared, and its attempt to build a wireless 4G satellite network that would broadcast in the frequency band used by the military GPS system and potentially jam GPS to make it inoperable. The LightSquared majority owner Philip Falcone and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja are big Democratic Party contributors.
To understand the significance of what President Obama is doing, it is helpful to review a little background information.
Because there would be chaos if anyone could operate a radio transmitter at any place, any time and any frequency without regard for others, the world realized there was a need to regulate such transmissions and long ago (as part of the League of Nations) created the ITU (International Telecommunications Union). It is a United Nations entity with 170 member countries that allocates
the frequency spectrum to the various radio services.
In this country it is illegal to turn on a radio transmitter without a license. The international allocation of frequency bands to radio services is replicated in the U.S. in national frequency allocation tables. Commercial service transmitter licenses are given by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and government services are approved by the Office of Spectrum Management in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce.
If you look on any device you have with a transmitter (cell phone, wireless router, garage door opener, etc.) you will see a notice that the device complies with FCC rule 15.
In this country the government and commercial services are separated into different radio frequency bands to allow each to have widespread geographical operations without interference. The documents indicate the FCC has ignored the concerns of the Department of Defense (Document DA-11-133A1) and allowed LightSquared to operate in a band that could interfere with the GPS system. The FCC is chaired by Julius Genachowski A longtime Obama friend and a top 2008 campaign fundraiser,
The GPS is not just used by civilians to find their destinations. It is incorporated into a myriad of automated military systems that use position information. Making it inoperable would not only negate the $billions spent on its deployment, it would be a serious blow to the ability of the military to protect us.
Admiral David Glasgow Farragut is remembered for his Civil War command “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
Perhaps that is a metaphor for a present day Obama command “Damn the country, full speed ahead!”
Going Postal Profitable (for the employees – for a while)
The Postal Service is running out of money. The anticipated shortfall for 2011 is
$6.4 billion.
The conventional wisdom that the Postal Service is the victim of the rise of email is only part of the story.
Another large part of the problem is the workers’ extricating themselves from Civil Service constraints to increase their pay and benefits. This is another example of public employees bargaining collectively with government entities to increase pay and benefits. This has made the Postal Service more constrained and less able to adapt to the changing environment and the challenge of email.
The postal operation is very labor intensive, so any increase in labor costs has a large impact on profitability.
Postal workers were able to significantly increase their pay because Postal pay exceeds Civil Service pay.
A college graduate with a B.S. degree and little experience starts in the Civil Service as a GS-5 at $29,656 per year. The median Civil Service salary is about $52,000 per year.
By contrast, starting Postal Service pay is $39,520 per year, for part time flexible mail carriers. The average pay of a postal worker in 2007 was 63,771 per year .
Postal workers were able to significantly increase their health benefit because they pay less for health insurance.
The Postal worker and the Civil Service worker both have the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program for their health insurance. The worker pays part of the insurance premium and the government pays the balance. Since the Postal worker pays a lot less for health insurance, the Postal insurance costs the government more.
For a typical health plan (Blue Cross self and family coverage), a Civil Service employee pays $431.60 per month. The balance of the insurance premium is paid by the U.S. Government as an employee benefit.
By contrast, a postal worker pays $322.18 per month. The Postal Service therefore pays over $109 per month extra as an employee benefit.
The Postal Service employs over 574,000 people. If Postal Service pay is $12,000 per year per person higher, that represents an added annual payroll cost of nearly $7 billion. The extra health insurance cost adds a burden to the Postal Service of over $750 million.
If it was not for these higher costs, not only would there not be a deficit this year but there would have been an accumulation of surpluses in previous years and the Postal Service would be on better financial footing today.
HISTORY.
An important part of the present financial problem began in 1970 when the U. S. Post Office left the Civil Service system and morphed into the Postal Service.
After years of mismanagement and attendant labor unrest, President Nixon signed into law the Postal Reorganization Act on August 12, 1970. The Post Office Department was transformed into the United States Postal Service, an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States. The act provided significant wage increases for postal workers.
The new Postal Service officially began operations on July 1, 1971. At that time, the Postmaster General left the Cabinet, and the Postal Service received:
1. Operational authority vested in a Board of Governors and Postal Service executive management, rather than in Congress.
2. Authority to issue public bonds to finance postal buildings and mechanization.
3. Direct collective bargaining between representatives of management and the unions.
4. A new rate-setting procedure, built around an independent Postal Rate Commission.
The Postal Reorganization Act established a postal career service, a framework that permits terms and conditions of employment to be set through collective bargaining. The Civil Service retirement program was retained.
What is happening to the postal service has often occurred in industry. The unions negotiate increasingly generous pay and benefits until the enterprise becomes too constrained to adapt to a changing environment, costs become uncompetitive and unsustainable, the enterprise collapses and the jobs vanish.
The Postal Service says they want to solve their problem by eliminating Saturday delivery. They do not seem to understand that by eliminating the service their customers cherish they are hastening the day when they become irrelevant.
